The Hard Conversation
How to handle saying the thing the client, or the room, does not want to hear.
For managers, review cycles, and technical leads who have to say no.
Team programs from CEO SoundLab, Dr. Jaclyn Normandie
Team Training
Communication and presence training, built for your team and measured before and after.
Book a 15-Minute Call
What we work on.
Your program is personalized through a discovery call, built from these topics.
The Art of the Introduction
An impression forms in under a second. You get ninety more to fully represent the company.
For client facing teams, sales, professional services and onboarding.
The Screen Test
Most first meetings now happen on camera. Make sure your team looks the part.
For hybrid and distributed teams, and anyone whose first meeting is a video call.
The Science of Attention
Meetings built around how the brain processes information for better focus, engagement, and trust.
For anyone who runs the room. Leadership development, train the trainer, and managers who teach.
Custom, designed for you
Tell us what your people are up against, and we build the program around that.
Board updates, regulatory briefings, investor meetings, negotiations, panels.
What it looks like from the inside
A sample program.
Framework taken from the Art of the Introduction.
01
The blind baselineBefore we begin
Each person records a one minute video introducing themselves as they would to a client. No preparation and no guidance, so what we get is the habit rather than a rehearsal. Every recording is reviewed before the first session.
02
Group session90 minutes
Everyone together, nobody assessed in front of the room. What a listener reads in the first seconds, demonstrated live, then everyone drafts and rehearses their own opening.
03
Individual session45 minutes each
Their baseline reviewed with them, and the one or two changes that will make the largest difference for that person. They deliver it again and are corrected in real time.
04
Applied practiceTwo weeks
They use it in real meetings. Each person submits one real recording and receives written feedback. This is the stage most training skips, and it is where most training fails.
05
Group session60 minutes
What happened when they used it, what proved difficult, a second live demonstration, and structured peer feedback.
06
Individual session45 minutes each
They record the same introduction again and it is played directly against the baseline. They hear the change rather than being told about it.
07
ReportingOn completion
Each person receives their own before and after privately. You receive the patterns across the group, aggregate movement, and where further work would be warranted.
AI can count the ums. It cannot tell you why.
The results.
What you can see
The room starts trusting what your people say.
- New hires sound like your firm in a month, not a year.
- Fewer meetings get repeated because the first one was unclear.
- More proposals come back with a yes.
- Clients look engaged rather than politely patient.
- Your people stop being talked over, and the recommendation gets adopted the first time.
What it feels like
You stop choosing between being liked and being taken seriously.
- You stop tightening up before you speak.
- You say it once, and it holds.
- You feel heard, and respected.
- You hear a recording of yourself and it sounds like you.
- You stop replaying the conversation in the car afterwards.
Where the method comes from
Three hundred voices, three days.
Every year for twenty seven years, as a conductor, Dr. Normandie has auditioned, scored and placed three hundred or more singers inside a few days. Listen, diagnose, decide, move on, and be consistent enough that the results hold up when somebody challenges them. Assessing a room full of people quickly and fairly is not a new problem here.
Formats
Built to fit the team.
Cohort program, four sessions
Workshop, 60 to 90 minutes
Half day intensive
Full day intensive
Small group and live webinar
In person or remote
Teams that want it running in house can certify their own facilitators. For conference and all hands sessions, see the keynotes.
Start with a conversation.
Tell me the team, the size, and what has to be true by the end of it.
Book a 15-Minute Call